CHRIS RICE COOPER is a newspaper writer, feature stories writer, poet, fiction writer, photographer, and painter. She maintains a blog at https://chrisricecooper.blogspot.com. She has a Bachelor's in Criminal Justice and completed all of her poetry and fiction workshops required for her Master’s in Creative Writing with a focus on poetry. She, her husband Wayne, sons Nicholas and Caleb, cats Nation and Alaska reside in the St. Louis area.

The
University of Ravensbruck is a tiny village yoked to the Mecklenburg Forest, nestled
next to Furstenberg,

where
the shimmering lake embraces fancy boathouses, laid bare beneath the town’s
church steeple, welcoming us all into the fold.

The main entrance to Ravensbruck

Free
education, room, board to every color of the rainbow:

Red,
Green, Blue, Purple, Pink, Black, Brown, and Yellow.

There
is no discrimination here!

There
are drawbacks - sawdust, gas, excrement, vomit, and dead bodies are all
consuming.

Food,
water are scarce;Clothing, shelter are minimal.But

there
are abundances of soul-breaking labor, starvation, disease, beatings, shootings, standing in the
weather for hours, torture, gas, and death.

Ravensbruck women laboring away.

Three
workshops that have been approved by the Nazis:

Workshop One:

Students
will learn how to style the hair of both men and women Nazis.The benefits are two fold:the Nazis will save time and money by not
having to drive to Furstenberg for haircuts.The students will get a respite from daily life

The
workshop will take place on the other side of the bathhouse’s camp-wall.

The wall of the bathhouse and kitchen block is the building on the right.

Workshop Two:

Helene
Korewina
has created the Kunstgewerbe Arts and Crafts workshop where young Polish
artists can paint, embroidery, sculpt, carve, and sew shoes, toys, and puppets
out of straw.The students will not be
able to keep their creations, because the Nazis will take the creations, sell
them on the market and pocket the money for themselves.The workshop will take place at the side of
the straw shop making barracks.

The barracks of Ravensbruck

Workshop Three:

Sylvia
Salvesen
will teach those how to draw Norwegian children on skis, wearing red tasseled
caps, standing outside a small Norwegian cottage surrounded by pine trees.The red, yellow, and blue pencils have
already been provided.

The
remaining workshops are considered highly secret and have not been approved by
the Nazis.It is required that once you
read this newsletter, that you memorize the courses offered and when and where
they will take place, and then destroy the document, even if you have to eat
it.

Halina
Chorazyna,
the chemistry professor from Warsaw

will
give lectures on chemistry.

Kathe
Diatz
will demonstrate how to comb hair even when it isn’t there.

Denise
Dufournier
will hold a workshop on how to build sandcastles.

Polish
dancer Ojcumila Falkowska will conduct a class

on
dance techniques.

Ojcumila,
who works in the staff canteen, will give updates after the nightly roll call.

Elisabeth
Fassender,
who was sent here for stealing coats,

will
teach us how to steal coasts

Catholic
writer Nanda Herbermann is leading Catholic literature classes and the
reciting of the Magnificat.

Jacqueline will show us how to obtain
a lock of hair from the dead, label it, preserve it in a scrapbook, and hide it
from the Nazis.

Joanna will teach Norwegian
literature and language in Block 10.

Olga
Benario, Stalin’s
feminine revolutionary, has great expertise in numerous fields; picking lice
from each other’s hair; drawing sketches with small sticks and sand; and
lecturing on philosophy based on letters received from her husband Carlos. Olga
will also hold a geography class on the university, revealing secret places not
known to the Nazis.In this course, each
student will receive copies of the map of the university drawn and scaled by
Olga from scrapes of papershe smuggled from the block ova.

Grete Buber-Neumann has access to the SS
offices and its large-scale map of Europe displaying flags representing the
front.She will give nightly updates of changes
made to the map.

Grete Buber-Neumann speaking at a rally organized by the European Youth Organization in Berlin. June 1952

Lublin
Poet Grazyna
Chrostowska will recite poetry after she tries to make a hairstyle with
her tufts.This class has been postponed
since Grazyna was confined to the isolation room for making a hairstyle with
her tufts.

Grazyna is now holding her own
roll call for those interested in memorizing one stanza of new poems she has
written. That way the poem lives even if she doesn’t.

The
Jehovah
Witnesses are offering daily Bible Studies to anyone who is interested.

Krysia
Cyza
is holding classes on how to compose poems and draw portraits of their loved
ones on paper smuggled in by the friendly Polish guards.

Krysia, one of the rabbits,
will also teach endurance to those who are interested. One lesson on endurance is learning how to
look at the stars and appreciate their beauty, even while standing in the
bitter cold for hours during morning and evening roll call.

Krysia will also teach us how
to write secret letters with paper smuggled by the Polish guards and our own
urine as ink.She will show us how to
hide these letters in the attic above our bunks, until it is time to pass them
to Hanna
Sturm, who will smuggle them out in the daily mail.

Jozka
Jaburkov, previous
editor of the communist feminist magazine The
Soweress is teaching numerous courses: her predictions for the coming
revolution; reciting her fairy tale stories she had published called Eva in Wonderland; how to write articles
benefiting communism and feminism.She
will teach the writers how to hide their articles in the attic, until it is
time to pass them to Hanna Sturm who will smuggle them
out in the daily mail.

Hanna
Sturm,
the Austrian communist and jack-of-all-trades will teach students: how to put
up fences, bang in nails, and break up locks.

Hanna
Sturm
will hold discussions on Leo Tolstoy’s War
and Peace.Students may find the
book highly repellent since Hanna found the book in the latrine. This
discussion will take place in the back of block 13.

Milena
Jesensak
know for her charisma, confidence

and
flaming red hair is holding classes on how we can obtain charisma and use it to
our advantage, with confidence.It is
our hope that once students learn these great lessons that they too will become
a privileged prisoner as Milena and work in the hospital.

Milena Jesenska

Yevgenia
Lazarevna Klemm
will offer classes on how to protest effectively; conduct newspaper readings (thanks
to the Czechs who smuggled in the newspapers); will tell stories of her young days in Russia in hopes that we forget the present.

Yevgenia will demonstrate to us how to cure typhus by rubbing the sick person's back.

Yevgenia will also teach those
how to make a birthday cake out
of 25 grams of margarine, a spoon of jam, bits of bread, and decorate it with
flowers from the grave of Binz’s dog.

Else Krug, who was sent to Ravensbruck
for being a prostitute, will offer her expertise on sado-masochism.You’ll find Else dressed in black and white,
wearing a black badge, her soul glued to the dirty ground.

Karoline
Lanckoronska
will tell of how the crematorium’s flames shooting higher every night remind
her of the beginning of the Iliad.She will also continue her lectures on
Charlemagne and Gothic art.More
importantly,

Karolina who is not afraid of
Binz or her black dog will teach all of us not to be afraid of Binz and her
black dog.

Karolina is holding a food
tasting course on the prized tomatoes from Himmler’s own farm that Himmler has
sent to her daily because she is a Polish Countess.

Cicely
Lefort,
will give talks about her experiences of living on a yacht with her French doctor
husband before she was sent here.

Cicely Lefort

Kathe
Leichter,
is our newest addition who arrived form Vienna.She will hold a class on current events and give poetry readings upon
request.

Loulou Le
Porz
will teach us how to remember the names of the dead and what they died from.She will also share how she smuggled in
medicines with the help of Yugoslavia pharmacists.

Loulou Le Porz

Lyusya is leading a workshop
on how to write leaflets and distribute them in secret.She is also holding a class on how to smuggle
in paper and pencils.

Anja
Lundholm
will speak of her own experiences at a brothel where she was raped sixteen
hours per day, for six weeks.

Doris Maase will lead discussions on
Beyond the Woods by Trygve
Gulbrannssen.

Maria, who works at the
bookbinding workshop, will tell of her experiences working at the bookbinding
workshop.

Micheline
Maurel
will hold a class on how to write poems for mothers who are separated from
their children.

Micheline Maurel

Annie de Montfort is holding seminars on
the history of Poland.

Sculptor
Zofia
Pocilowska is holding classes on how to make small sculptures out of
sticks, coal, dead woman’s clothes, and other materials. She will also teach
how to hide these sculptures in the wall’s tiny cracks near our bunks.

The Polish
Performing Artists will only perform for peelers in the vegetable cellar. One performance
is the reciting of stories in the dialect of the Tatra Mountains.

Prostitutes,
lesbians, and criminals wearing green or black badges will teach those
interested how to have sex with men and women in exchange for sausage and
margarine.

Maria
Rundo
will hold a session of acting lessons on how to pretend we are living in a
fairy tale instead of this.

Witkoria
Ryczko
who is supposed to correctly sew buttons onto the Nazi soldier uniforms, will
hold special meetings

of
how to incorrectly sew buttons on Nazi soldier uniforms.

The French
Prostitutes
are the most reviled here at the camp but we have a special presenter Simone
(a French prostitute who will be covered with black and white cloth to
hide her identity) who will tell of her experiences of hiding America pilots in
the brothel where she worked.

The
old
students will teach the new students how to line up in groups
of five quicker than the blink of an eye.

Corrie and
Betsie ten Boom
are offering Bible Studies to those who are interested. The Bible studies will
be held at their flea-ridden bunk in Barracks 38 and there is no fear of
discovery, because the fleas, which bite, are keeping the guards outside the
doors.

The
piano concert by Genevieve Tiller has ben permanently canceled due to a lesion
on her thumb.

Emilie
Tillion
will give talks from her own bunk on the history of French art, culture, and history.

Emilie Tillion

Germaine
Tillion
has secured a camera on the camp black market and will show her photographs.She also will hold talks every night, after
the fourth guard inspection, near her bunk.Women are requested to form a line and repeat what she says into the
next woman’s ear.

Germaine
Tillion
will speak of her experiences of writing her own operetta spoof on Orpheus in the Underworld called Le Verfugbar aux enfers.Following
her talk, there will be a theatrical play staged out based on her spoof. In the play, a chorus of Verfugs will sing
of“a
model camp with all comforts, water, gas, electricity – above all gas.”The play, which will be held at the back of
Block 12, will hopefully make everyone laugh.

Even
though this is an adult play, it is highly encouraged to bring as many children
as possible, because it seems the children have forgotten how to laugh.

"Children Behind the Wire" by Mieczyslaw Kosielnick

In
Block 27, children are invited to participate in a game called “Selection for the gas chamber.”

At
the sign shop the Ukraine girl sings Russian Folk songs.It is safe to attend this concert because the
machines are so loud that the guards never hear.

Valentinia will teach others how
to smuggle precious items

(like
metal shavings) in our vaginas until the right moment comes to pass those items
to a civilian worker.

Vera will train us how to
stuff a piece of bread through wire in the blink of an eye.

Katharina
Waiz,
the gypsy trapeze artist, will teach you how to scale the fences.

Maria
Wiedmaier
will provide updated information from the Nazi Newspaper the Volkischer Beobachter

The
Red
Army block women will hold classes on how to make red flags to hang in the
hopeful arrival of the Russians.

The Russian Army liberating the Rabbits at Ravensbruck

While
the secretaries are holding their daily bomb fires, we will try to save as many
files as possible and hide them in the attics above our bunks.

Russian
Liberation Army is raping women and girls repeatedly, sometimes three men at
one time.Despite our efforts of trying
to hide women and girls, the Russians have discovered our hiding places.All women and girls are subject to this
treatment – those who have given birth, in the process of dying, sick, and unconscious.Only the dead and those who can convince the
Russians they have contagious diseases will be spared. Is there anyone who has
experience on how to avoid these rapes?

We
no longer need an expert on how to prevent being raped by the Russian
Liberators.It is too late for the Russians
have raped every woman and girl.

The
University of Ravensbruck is officially closed due to lack of students.All women and children are no longer
here.All of them have been murdered, transported
to safety on white buses, hiding in the woods, or marching in their wooden
clogs or barefoot heading for home.Or what
they hope is left of home.